“But they will forever brighten.”

“And this I swear!”

The men drank their glasses, and the same ceremony was performed between Baldwin and McMurdo

“There!” cried McGinty, rubbing his hands.  “That’s the end of the black blood.  You come under lodge discipline if it goes further, and that’s a heavy hand in these parts, as Brother Baldwin knows—­and as you will damn soon find out, Brother McMurdo, if you ask for trouble!”

“Faith, I’d be slow to do that,” said McMurdo.  He held out his hand to Baldwin.  “I’m quick to quarrel and quick to forgive.  It’s my hot Irish blood, they tell me.  But it’s over for me, and I bear no grudge.”

Baldwin had to take the proffered hand; for the baleful eye of the terrible Boss was upon him.  But his sullen face showed how little the words of the other had moved him.

McGinty clapped them both on the shoulders.  “Tut!  These girls!  These girls!” he cried.  “To think that the same petticoats should come between two of my boys!  It’s the devil’s own luck!  Well, it’s the colleen inside of them that must settle the question; for it’s outside the jurisdiction of a Bodymaster—­and the Lord be praised for that!  We have enough on us, without the women as well.  You’ll have to be affiliated to Lodge 341, Brother McMurdo.  We have our own ways and methods, different from Chicago.  Saturday night is our meeting, and if you come then, we’ll make you free forever of the Vermissa Valley.”

Chapter 3 — Lodge 341, Vermissa

On the day following the evening which had contained so many exciting events, McMurdo moved his lodgings from old Jacob Shafter’s and took up his quarters at the Widow MacNamara’s on the extreme outskirts of the town.  Scanlan, his original acquaintance aboard the train, had occasion shortly afterwards to move into Vermissa, and the two lodged together.  There was no other boarder, and the hostess was an easy-going old Irishwoman who left them to themselves; so that they had a freedom for speech and action welcome to men who had secrets in common.

Shafter had relented to the extent of letting McMurdo come to his meals there when he liked; so that his intercourse with Ettie was by no means broken.  On the contrary, it drew closer and more intimate as the weeks went by.

In his bedroom at his new abode McMurdo felt it safe to take out the coining moulds, and under many a pledge of secrecy a number of brothers from the lodge were allowed to come in and see them, each carrying away in his pocket some examples of the false money, so cunningly struck that there was never the slightest difficulty or danger in passing it.  Why, with such a wonderful art at his command, McMurdo should condescend to work at all was a perpetual mystery to his companions; though he made it clear to anyone who asked him that if he lived without any visible means it would very quickly bring the police upon his track.